Empowering Students: Helping All Students Realize Success.

Empowering school participants in school restructuring has gained increasing support over the past several years. The Empowered School District Project was a 3-year study involving two universities, an educational foundation, and nine school districts and designed to empower school participants and help students become lifelong learners. The Empowerment Project helped teachers and administrators in the school districts reshape their roles and institute changes favorable to empowerment. Each district had a team that developed a plan including formulation, developing and testing, and implementation. The districts represented a mix of urban, suburban, and rural settings. One school in each district was selected for participation in the project. There were five elementary schools (one of these was a private school) and four high schools; student populations ranged from 225 to 2,500. A teacher in each school was selected as chronicler, trained in qualitative data collection methods, and technically supported by a project facilitator. Case studies of four schools in the project are presented in this report. Five key themes were identified in the schools that were most successful in empowering students: (1) an early definition of student empowerment; (2) a focus on students as a social value; (3) flexibility and resourcefulness in meeting and developing the needs of students; (4) a school environment supportive of risk taking and experimentation; and (5) facilitative leadership by the principal. (Contains 28 references.) (JPT)